Page 140 of The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time 12)

“Move!” Mat said, rearing Pips as another pack of villagers saw him.

“The gold!” Talmanes said.

“Burn the gold!” Mat said. “We can win more, and that food isn’t worth our lives. Go!”

Talmanes and the soldiers turned their mounts and galloped down the street, Mat kicking Pips to join them, leaving the gold and wagon behind. It wasn’t worth their lives—if possible, he’d bring the army in on the morrow to recover it. But they had to survive first.

They galloped for a short time, and Mat slowed them at the next corner, holding up a hand. He glanced over his shoulder. The villagers were still coming, but the gallop had left them behind for now.

“I’m still blaming you,” Talmanes said.

“I thought you liked fighting,” Mat said.

“I like some fights,” Talmanes said. “On the battlefield or a nice bar fight. This . . . this is insane.” The pack of villagers behind had fallen to all fours and were moving in a strange lope. Talmanes shivered visibly.

There was barely enough light to see by. Now that the sun had set, those mountains and the gray clouds blocked what light remained. Lanterns lined many of the streets, but it didn’t look as if anyone would be lighting them.

“Mat, they’re gaining,” Talmanes said, sword held at the ready.

“This isn’t just about our wager,” Mat said, listening to the screams and shouts. They came from all around the village. Down a side road, a couple of struggling bodies burst through the upper window of a house. They were women, clawing at each other as they fell, crashing to the ground with a sickening thud. They stopped moving.

“Come on,” Mat said, turning Pips. “We’ve got to find Thom and the women.” They galloped down a side street that would intersect with the main thoroughfare, passing packs of men and women fighting in the gutters. A fat man with bloodied cheeks stumbled into the road, and Mat reluctantly rode him down. There were too many people fighting at the sides for him to risk leading his men around the poor fool. Mat even saw children fighting, biting at the legs of those larger than they, throttling those their own age.

“The entire bloody town has gone insane,” Mat muttered grimly as the four of them barreled onto the main street and turned toward the fine inn. They’d pick up the Aes Sedai, then swing out eastward for Thom, as his inn was the most distant.

Unfortunately, the main street was worse than the one Mat had left. It was almost completely dark now. Indeed, it seemed to him that the darkness had come too quickly here. Unnaturally swift. The road’s length squirmed with shadows, figures battling, screeching, struggling in the deepening gloom. In that darkness, the fights looked at times to be solid, single creatures—horrific monstrosities with a dozen waving limbs and a hundred mouths to scream from the blackness.

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Mat spurred Pips forward. There was nothing to do but charge down the middle of it.

“Light,” Talmanes yelled as they galloped toward the inn. “Light!”

Mat gritted his teeth and leaned forward on Pips, spear held close to his side as he rode through the nightmare. Roars shook the darkness and bodies rolled across the street. Mat shivered at the horror of it, cursing under his breath. The night itself seemed to be trying to smother them, to strangle them, and to spawn beasts of blackness and murder.

Pips and the other horses were well trained, and the four of them charged straight down the street. Mat narrowly avoided being pulled from the saddle as dark forms leapt for his legs, trying to yank him free. They screamed and hissed, like legions of the drowned trying to pull him down into a deep, unearthly sea.

Beside Mat, Delarn’s horse suddenly pulled to a halt, then, as a mass of black figures leaped in front of it, the gelding reared in panic, throwing Delarn from his saddle.

Mat reined in Pips, turning at the man’s scream, which was somehow more distinct and more human than the howls around them.

“Mat!” Talmanes yelled, charging past. “Keep going! We can’t stop!”

No, Mat thought, shoving down his panic. No, I’m not leaving someone to this. He took a deep breath and ignored Talmanes, kicking Pips back toward the black clot of bodies where Delarn had fallen. Sweat sprayed from his forehead, chilled by the wind of the gallop. Moans, screams, and hisses all around him seemed to descend on him.

Mat roared and threw himself from Pips’ back—he couldn’t bring his mount in without risking trampling the man he wanted to save. He hated fighting in darkness, he bloody hated it. He attacked those dark figures, whose faces he couldn’t see save for an occasional flash of teeth or insane eyes reflecting the dying light. It reminded him, briefly, of another night, killing Shadowspawn in the dark. Save these figures he fought didn’t have the grace of a Myrddraal. They didn’t even have the coordination of Trollocs.

For a moment, it seemed Mat fought the shadows themselves—shadows made by sputtering firelight, random and uncoordinated, yet all the more deadly for his inability to anticipate them. He narrowly escaped getting his skull crushed by attacks that made no sense. During the day, those attacks would have been laughable, but from this darkened pack of men—and women—who didn’t care what they hit or who they hurt, the attacks were overwhelming. Mat found himself fighting just to stay alive, spinning his ashandarei in wide arcs, using it to trip as often as he used it to kill. If something moved in the darkness, he struck. How in the light was he going to find Delarn in this!

A shadow moved just a short distance away, and Mat instantly recognized a sword-form. Rat Gnawing the Grain? A villager wouldn’t know that. Good man!

Mat spun toward that shadow, slashing two other shadows across the chest, earning grunts and howls of pain. Delarn’s figure fell beneath a pile of several others, and Mat bellowed in denial, leaping across a fallen body and landing with his spear descending in a broad sweep. Shadows bled where he struck, the blood just another patch of darkness, and Mat used the butt of his weapon to beat back another. He reached down, pulling one of the shadows to its feet, and heard a muttered curse. It was Delarn.

“Come on,” Mat said, pulling the man toward Pips, who stood firm, snorting, in the darkness. The attacking men seemed to ignore animals, which was fortunate. Mat shoved the stumbling Delarn toward the horse, then turned and engaged the pack he’d known would chase after him. Again, Mat danced with the darkness, striking again and again, trying to disengage so that he could climb into the saddle. He risked a glance over his shoulder, and found that Delarn had managed to get onto Pips’ back—but the soldier sat slumped, a huddled mound. How badly was he wounded? He barely seemed able to keep himself upright. Blood and bloody ashes!

Mat turned back to the attackers, spinning his spear, trying to force them back. But they didn’t care about being wounded, they didn’t care how dangerous Mat was. They just kept coming! Surrounding him. Coming at him from every side. Bloody ashes! He twisted just in time to see a dark shape rush him from behind.

Something flashed in the night, reflecting some very distant light. The dark figure behind Mat slumped to the ground. Another flash, and one of the ones in front of Mat fell. Suddenly, a figure on a white horse rushed past, and another knife flashed in the air, dropping a third man.